


of midnight escapades

by silverkatana



Category: iKON (Korea Band)
Genre: M/M, Random Fluff, bobhwan, first ikon fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 04:28:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19124593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverkatana/pseuds/silverkatana
Summary: “and,” jinhwan says in barely more than a whisper, snapping jiwon out of his thoughts, “i’ve always wondered what it felt like to walk down the streets when no one else is around. doesn’t it sound nice?”





	of midnight escapades

the city looks different after dark, jiwon notes. neon lights blink faintly in far-off alleyways, city lamps illuminating empty sidewalks with faint orange hues, the moon hanging soft and round in a starless sky.

“what’re you so intrigued by?” a soft whisper by his ear sounds, and he doesn’t need to look to identify the familiar brief touch along his wrist, the head that settles itself onto his shoulder without asking.

he shrugs his other shoulder, looping his arm around jinhwan’s body as he continues to stare out the car window at the dim city lights and blurring roads. “nothing much. the city looks… different, that’s all, at this time.”

low laughter thrums in jinhwan’s throat as he peers out at the window too. “you’ve only realised that now?” he murmurs, a smile beginning to cross his features, “i think the city looks better at this time.”

“since when were you awake at night to look at the scenery?” jiwon mutters, getting a light hit on the arm in response. “why, though?” 

jinhwan lifts a hand and begins to count off the reasons as though he were a candidate for a job interview reciting a practised response. “firstly, it looks peaceful like this. empty, no loud noisy vehicles or people talking too loud. and it looks beautiful, doesn’t it? the glows of the light against all this dark.” he pauses, as if searching for words to portray everything he wants to say, before he settles on, “i like it like this, when the rest of the world’s asleep and i’m not. it makes me feel like i’m suspended in time.”

jiwon knows what he’s trying to say. the whirl of city life; blurred blotches of colour moving busily back and forth on crowded streets, rushing here-there-everywhere, to the bus stop, subway, speeding down highways in expensive cars, all in a mad bid to get to work on time. office suits, long fancy coats, an eternal buzz of movement, everyone always so busy, everyone always everywhere at once. at night, it’s different. languid, slow, empty. no more people rushing down well-worn pavements, cup of coffee in one hand and a file of documents in the other, no more mish-mash of too many sounds, no more mind-numbing to-and-fro rush.

“and,” jinhwan says in barely more than a whisper, snapping jiwon out of his thoughts, “i’ve always wondered what it felt like to walk down the streets when no one else is around. doesn’t it sound nice?”

jiwon lets out a noncommittal hum in response, chuckling a little as he feels jinhwan’s head get a little heavier on his shoulder, the ends of his words slurring together just the slightest as he begins to succumb to the tempting throes of sleep. “i want to do it someday,” jinhwan whispers out, his tone tinged with exhaustion, before he presses himself closer to jiwon and lets his eyelids drag closed.

 _yeah_ , jiwon thinks, leaning the back of his hand against the window, careful not to move too much. it’s cooling to the touch, but not overly so. crisp and pure, different from the normal city air.

_it’ll be nice to do, someday._

he lets himself wonder for a few minutes - how it’d feel to walk, masks off, dressed in whatever he wanted, hair all tussled and tangled, eyes bright with sleeplessness, drinking in the freshness of night air. he lets himself wonder, plot all the possible ways to sneak out without the managers knowing a thing, all the possible nights that he has that aren’t weighed down by midnight schedules.

after a while, he lets himself fall asleep to the familiar movement of the car running along the empty roads, and as he leans his head into the backseat’s headrest, he thinks to himself, _yeah, it’ll be nice._

 

“jinhwan-hyung.”

jiwon isn’t expecting jinhwan to be asleep, even if everyone mildly sane is usually asleep at this time. (except hanbin, maybe, but sometimes he wonders if hanbin is even human, with how hard he works.)

and jinhwan isn’t. “what do you want?” he murmurs, volume low and tinged with hints of sleep. “can’t sleep?”

“no,” jiwon replies, unceremoniously plopping himself onto a corner of jinhwan’s bed and turning his head to look at the older. he’s aware of the grin that’s beginning to prick at the upwards corners of his lips, and he’s sure that jinhwan can see it too, even in the gloom of his room. “let’s go.”

jinhwan lets himself flop onto his bed, belly-first, scrolling through his notifications with lazy movements. “go where? it’s two-thirty in the morning, jiwon. are you drunk?” 

“i’m perfectly sober, thank you.” jiwon pauses, dropping his tone to an almost conspiratorial whisper. “you wanted to know what it felt like to walk at night, didn’t you?”

now jinhwan is sitting upright, his eyes a tint brighter, the sleep dissolved from his voice. “you remembered?” a faint expression of excitement, anticipation - and then reality seems to crash upon his shoulders, and then deflation. “we can’t, jiwon, you know that. the managers wouldn’t allow us, either.”

jiwon stands and rifles through jinhwan’s closet, picking out a black hoodie and throwing it at jinhwan. jinhwan catches it, and doesn’t say anything about it. “it’s warm,” jiwon says. “the jacket.” and he should know, he thinks amusedly as he watches jinhwan clutch it. it’s the same black hoodie that jinhwan stole from his own closet, anyway.

“we can’t, jiwon,” jinhwan reminds, nose a little scrunched in confusion as he surveys the article of clothing in his arms like it’s a foreign object, “the managers?”

“no one ever said they had to know,” jiwon shoots back, pulling another hoodie from jinhwan’s closet, this time red. _so that’s where all my hoodies went to._ “we’ll just go for a bit, and then we’ll come back and go to sleep. and when they wake up in the morning, they won’t know a thing.”

he smiles widely for a moment, almost proud of his plan, before jinhwan deadpans, “you do know that manager-hyung is sleeping on the sofa in the living room, and he sleeps lighter than a cat, so he’s bound to wake up when we open the door, right?”

there’s a blank minute of silence. then jiwon shrugs, undeterred, and declares, “let’s just make a run for it, then.” foolish or not, he doesn’t know - probably is a very foolish plan, judging by the look of absolute apprehension on jinhwan’s face - but what he does know that as dumb a plan as it is, he’s not going to regret it. especially not if it’s with jinhwan.

 

(kim jiwon has always had the frustratingly good ability of convincing people to do whatever, even if it’s a stupid plan (or the lack thereof). like sneaking away from their managers and almost certainly landing themselves in trouble, for example. maybe it’s the bright enthusiasm in his voice, bursting with more life than the sun itself. or maybe it’s that damn smile lighting up his whole face that’s impossible to say no to. or maybe it’s the entire idea itself that sounds so stupid and yet so ridiculously attractive all at the same time. 

either way, jinhwan finds himself letting jiwon grab hold of his wrist and pull him forward, out through his bedroom door, and then the main door. and then down the lift, and into the open night air, soft with a light drizzle and ethereal with hazy afterdark lighting.)

 

when jiwon reaches forward and encircles his fingers around jinhwan’s wrist, he doesn’t protest, and jiwon can feel the smile on his face getting bigger as he successfully leads jinhwan out of the bedroom and to the living room. he throws on his hoodie, careful not to accidentally brush against anything that may awaken the manager, and when jinhwan stares at him wide-eyed he reaches forward and tugs the hoodie over jinhwan’s body, too. it’s oversized, with sleeves too long and the hem reaching long past his waist, and he looks a little lost and uncertain standing still there, but jiwon thinks he looks adorable like that.

“get your shoes,” jiwon mouths, and this time, jinhwan obeys, albeit shaking his head with a disbelieving smile all the while.

jiwon opens the door, and it makes a terrible creaking sound loud enough to wake half the dorm (but they sleep like rocks, so they don’t awaken) that causes jinhwan to freeze on the spot and jiwon to still in place, face twisted in an expression of horrified guilt.

“run,” jiwon says, the same beat that the manager’s groggy footsteps slap against the polished wooden floors. he doesn’t bother with masking his voice, nor with maintaining silence as he clutches jinhwan’s wrist and breaks into a dead sprint. the manager would have figured out it was them eventually; might as well make his job easier.

“kim jiwon!” he hears behind him as the two of them bolt down the corridor and thank _god_ the lift is already on their floor, because as the doors close and they stumble in, jiwon’s breathing laboured and jinhwan’s shoe still hanging half-off his foot, he swears he saw the flash of the manager’s clothing dangerously close to catching them before they ran into the lift.

“let’s go before they get us,” jiwon breathes, and jinhwan doesn’t think twice about protesting. both of them step past the lift doors before they’re fully opened, then out through the main gate, and they’re met with the crisp night air. it’s like a slap to the face, but a welcomed one at that, and for the briefest of moments they allow themselves to stand and pant, hungrily drinking in everything around them.

“kim jiwon!” a pause of disbelief, “and kim jinhwan!”

“oops,” jinhwan responds, and this time he’s the one who grabs jiwon and makes a run for it. they disappear into winding shadows and uncertain sidewalks, their footsteps pattering loud and free against stretching paths and fingers brushing in almost childlike wonder against rough city walls.

they run until the manager’s shouts are lost in the whistle of the wind, until jinhwan loses his breath and grips on jiwon’s arm for support, until jiwon’s shoelaces come untied and they stop for rest, breathing messy and hair unkempt but smiles ever-present on their faces.

“i think we’re safe now,” jiwon chuckles after retying his laces, surveying the area. no hint of their manager, no hint of anyone at all. just the two of them, accompanied by the refreshing coolness of a few stray raindrops hitting their cheeks, and the muted luminescence of street lights. “is this what you wanted?”

“better,” jinhwan murmurs out, “it’s better than what i wanted.”

and jiwon grins bright, even though he’s not sure why. “i think so too.”

jinhwan slips his hand inside of jiwon’s and begins to walk, this time at a leisurely pace, eyes alight with life as he takes in the world that’s asleep around him. to jiwon, it looks almost as though his eyes were a reflection of the street lights, a pool of dappled moonlight, all the light in the area gathered together in one pair of eyes.

walking hand-in-hand with jinhwan while the rest of the city lapsed into lonely sleep all around them really makes it feel like the universe had stopped making its daily rounds on its axes and had frozen in place for a while, just for the two of them. the touch of rain on his skin, the way the city looks at night, jinhwan’s warmth against him - it’s more perfect than he ever thought it would be, and it gives rise to a multitude of emotions in him that he doesn’t know how to put into words.

“jinhwan,” he blurts before he can stop himself, and his brain goes into temporary overdrive, searching desperately for the correct words to express everything he wants to say, and everything he can’t say all at once. so he hesitates, feelings lingering on his tongue thought but unsaid, yet jinhwan stills, waiting ever-patient, smiling up at him in his oversized hoodie with his eyes alight with the light of seven million stars.

and when it comes out, spills from him like water in an overflowing sink, it doesn’t come out exactly as he hoped it would. not as eloquently. or not as well-elaborated. it’s a little abrupt, and maybe too sudden, and blunt. but it works. “jinhwan,” he repeats, “i love you.”

there’s a moment of silence, of devastating silence, and jiwon feels his heartbeat in his throat. his mind blanks, and then he starts berating himself for blurting out whatever his heart said he should blurt out, and then jinhwan’s fingers wrapped around his tighten and he forgets how to think all over again.

“it took you long enough, idiot,” jinhwan retorts playfully, smiling up at him. “now i’m glad i agreed to taking this walk with you.”

“you wouldn’t have had it in you to refuse, anyway,” jiwon rebukes immediately before falling once more into stunned silence, attempting to wrap his head around jinhwan’s words. so casual, as though he were merely discussing the weather, yet holding more weight than the sun and moon combined.

“you’re right, i wouldn’t have,” jinhwan admits, his laughter warm and effervescent next to jiwon’s ear. “can i ask you a question?”

“yeah?”

“now that you finally confessed, can i kiss you?”

jiwon can feel himself grinning wider than he thought his lips could even stretch, and he finds himself nodding like a damn fool, stumbling over his own words which subsequently makes jinhwan break out into more laughter. “y - yeah you - yeah that’d be good.” 

“i’m glad you agree,” jinhwan breathes.

and then they’re kissing under the dim city lights along the empty roads, and for that one moment, the rest of the world ceases to exist.

 

 

“kim jiwon. and kim jinhwan.” the manager is quite literally seething by the time they stroll back to their residence, jinhwan cheerfully perched atop jiwon’s back. jiwon swears that if he squinted hard enough he’d probably see steam radiating from their manager.

“sorry,” he says, trying his best to sound apologetic, but he’s still buzzing from the high of kissing kim jinhwan and he ends up sounding anything but.

“we won’t do it again,” jinhwan promises sweetly, but the sound of his soft laughter in jiwon’s ear convinces jiwon that it’s a promise meant to be broken.

their manager mutters something under his breath, knowing them well enough to know that they’re not intending to keep their promise, either, and settles on herding the two of them back into the apartment building to get them to sleep before dawn breaks and the schedules begin again.

when they’re escorted back into the dorm and the main door closes, they’re greeted with the sight of hanbin sitting on the couch, still in his coat. jiwon blinks - he’s not entirely surprised, since it’s not uncommon for the leader to be returning at odd times in the morning after working in the studio, but nevertheless, he asks bluntly: “the hell are you here for?”

“you’re on the wrong floor,” jinhwan chimes in, and hanbin snickers.

“i know, hyung,” he says, and raises his eyebrows at the two of them. “so how was it?” 

jinhwan shrugs.

“perfect,” he says, a smile gracing his lips.

 _yeah_ , jiwon thinks as jinhwan slips off his back and stands next to him, smelling still of fresh rain and night air, _perfect._

 

**Author's Note:**

> so uhh i wrote some bobhwan when i was free & so i guess here's my first published bobhwan fic :' hope you enjoyed i guess?


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